This presentation was delivered for OH-IO, a SIOP group in Columbus, OH. Thank you Michele Williams, BPM and the OH-IO Board for this fun opportunity to talk about radical innovation!

1. Radical Innovation:
Channel the power of
disruptors and dreamers to
propel your enterprise
Presented for OH-IO (Central OH SIOP)
by Brenda Jones, Ph.D.
Chair, Dept. of Communications & Behavioral Sciences
August 15, 2019

2. What is radical innovation?
Colombo, von Krogh, Rossi-Lamastra, & Stephan (2017) state radical
innovation occurs when fundamentally new knowledge is created.
Why do we need more creative capacity?
Why do we need to innovate?

3. Our Quest
Creative
Challenge
Questions &
Insights
Climate for
Creativity
Innovator’s
Dilemma
Radical
reimagined

4. Creative Challenge: Mature Org. + Start-
ups

5. Creative Challenge: FUD
We focus on key groups for change/innovation.
Generate a list of Fears, Uncertainties, and Doubts
Red group = C-Suite Leadership
Yellow Group = HR & Training & Development
Blue group = Project Team

6. Concerns about Creativity & Innovation
Q. How do we get more quality ideas? Engine Check
Q. How do we ensure it’s the ‘right kind’ of innovation? Start with
‘appropriate’ creative solution
Q. How do we innovate efficiently? We have lovely models…

7. Tina Seelig’s Innovation Engine

8. Defining Creativity
Teresa Amabile, well-known creativity researcher and Harvard professor, defines a
product as creative if “it is a novel and appropriate solution to the task, and if the
task was presented heuristically” (1992, p. 2).
5 + 5 = __
(algorithmic question)
__ + __ = 10
(heuristic question)

9. Hierarchy of Skills (Seelig, 2015)
Innovation leads to
Entrepreneurship
Creativity leads to
Innovation
Imagination leads to
Creativity

10. Challenging work
Encouragement
(Supervisor/Org.)
Work Group Support
Freedom
Resources
Amabile’s Climate for Creativity

11. How Innovative Are We?
PERFORMANCE EVALUATION/ CURRENT PROCESSES FLEXIBLE WORK PLACE (SAME PMP)

12. C-Suite Leaders
 Vision and Goals
 Risk-taking & Learning Through Small Losses
 Normalize failing – Culture of “perfection” is
TOXIC
 Coach/support creative projects (Christensen,
2016)
 Open Communication

13. HR & Training and Development
 Self-assessment and goal setting in performance
management
 De-emphasize extrinsic rewards and individual
competition
 Training & Coaching:
Disruptors/ Growth-mind-set folks challenged by
established systems
Adaptive/ Fixed-mind-set folks challenged by
chaos of creative process
Image credit: Flickr – Public Domain

14. Project Teams
 Promote connections – across org. silos and companies
 Prioritize diversity & inclusion
 Foster supportive communication climates
 Establish norms of playfulness – play with data, ideas, etc.
 Conflict over task (not relationship or process)
Image credit: Flickr – Public Domain

15. Innovator’s Dilemma
Image source: https://images.app.goo.gl/oZB2efXqP4frF8S89

16. Innovative
organizations…
prioritize
collaboration,
diversity,
and curiosity

17. Let’s Redefine
“Radical
Innovation”…
As any
Innovation that
adds value for
the customer…
The capacity to create resides in each of us.

18. References
Amabile, T. M. (2019). Educating Leaders Who Make a Difference in the World. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(1), 7–11.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691618804172
Amabile, T. M., Conti, R., Coon, H., Lazenby, J., & Herron, M. (1996). Assessing the Work Environment for Creativity. Academy of
Management Journal, 39(5), 1154–1184. https://doi-org.links.franklin.edu/10.2307/256995
Amabile, T. (1992). Social Environments That Kill Creativity. Readings in Innovation, 1–17. Retrieved from
https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=22895087&site=eds-live
Christensen, C. (2016). The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and
Change). Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
Colombo, M. G., von Krogh, G., Rossi-Lamastra, C., & Stephan, P. E. (2017). Organizing for Radical innovation: Exploring novel insights.
Journal of Product Innovation Management, 34(4), 394-405. doi:10.1111/jpim.12391
Hoonsopon, D., & Ruenrom, G. (2012). The impact of organizational capabilities on the development of radical and incremental product
innovation and product innovation performance. Journal of Managerial Issues, 24(3), 250-276. Retrieved from
https://www.ebsco.com/products/research-databases/business-source-premier
Hughes, D. J., Lee, A., Wei Tian, A., Newman, A., et al. (2018). Leadership, creativity, and innovation: A critical review and practical
recommendations. The Leadership Quarterly, 29(5), 549-569. doi: 10.1016/J.LEAQUA.2018.03.001
Kurtzberg, T. R., & Amabile, T. M. (2001). From Guilford to Creative Synergy: Opening the Black Box of Team-Level Creativity. Creativity
Research Journal, 13(3/4), 285–294. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15326934CRJ1334_06
Liedtka, J., Salzman, R., & Azer, D. (2017). Democratizing Innovation in Organizations: Teaching Design Thinking to Non-Designers. Design
Management Review, 28(3), 49–55. https://doi.org/10.1111/drev.12090
Linkner, J. (2011). Disciplined Dreaming: A proven system to drive breakthrough creativity. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Nicholas, J., Ledwith, A., & Bessant, J. (2015). Selecting early-stage ideas for radical
innovation. Research Technology Management, 58(4), 36-43. doi:10.5437/08956308X5804260
Seelig, T. (2015). Creativity Rules: Get ideas out of your head and into the world. New York, NY: Harper Collins.